central america. it's thursday, december 13th, 2012. and what is so special about 12-13-12? it's ben bernanke's birthday. happy birthday, ben. "squawk box" begins right now. >>> good morning and welcome back to south carolina here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen. becky is off today. dino kosof, he's going to have a lot to talk about when it comes to what mr. bernanke just said. later in the program, we'll talk to pimco's kneneal ashkari. >>> a surprise from ben bernanke, linking unemployment to monetary policy. rates will be staying where they are right now, which is close to zero, of course. until at the very least the jobless rate falls to 6.5%. we can only cross our fingers wherefore when that might be. ben bernanke says these changes will make the central bank more transparent adding they can only help the markets. the central bank ramped up its asset purchase program adding $40 billion to its $40 billion a month purchases of mortgage-backed bonds. he spoke about the objectives during wednesday's news conference. >> the asset purchases and the rate